The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20070928004328/http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc-bin/artread.pl?direction=Current&articlenumber=16490
Microsoft
Features Science Commercial News IndustrySpotlight ProductWatch PreviousArticle NextArticle Sponsors Jump to Other Areas

SANDIA MAY UNWITTINGLY HAVE SOLD SUPERCOMPUTER TO CHINA

FEATURES AND COMMENTARY


10/22/99

Washington, DC -- According to an Energy Epartment report released Wednesday, a U.S. nuclear laboratory unwittingly sold a powerful supercomputer to a Chinese national. The capabilities of the computer are far greater than those allowed by current export law.

"Had I known about the sale at the time, I would have said, 'No, we should ask for a waiver not to sell this device," said Paul Robinson, director of the Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M. He and a host of other officials from the Energy Department gave the first complete public account of the episode.

Sandia bought back the supercomputer - a key enabler in developing nuclear weapons - at a loss of almost $60,000.

The incident prompted a moratorium on all sales of excess equipment and a two-month internal investigation that laid the blame on lab officials for bad communication, a failure to follow established security procedures for exports, and a general disregard for security.

In October 1998, Sandia sold a 6-year-old Intel Paragon XPS supercomputer with a capability of performing 150,000 to 200,000 million theoretical operations per second (MTOPS) to EHI Group USA Inc., of Cupertino, Calif., for $30,800. Sandia had purchased it for almost $10 million in 1993 but decided it had grown obsolete for its needs.

Unknown to Sandia at the time, EHI was owned by Korber Jiang, a citizen of the People's Republic of China.

Such computers are restricted for export to "sensitive" countries like China. China is not allowed to receive U.S. supercomputers with speeds over 7,000 MTOPS. Had it gotten hold of the Paragon, it would have been a "substantial advance," according to Energy Department security chief Eugene Habiger. Despite his stated intention to use the computer for spare parts, Jiang contacted Sandia in November complaining that the computer did not work and asked for additional parts.

Sandia directed Jiang to the manufacturer, Intel, for the requested parts. In December 1998, an Intel representative e-mailed a Sandia employee concerned that Jiang may have exported the computer to a customer in China, which had not happened.

The Sandia employee passed the information to his superiors, one of whom judged the concerns "mere speculation" and declined to pass them on to Sandia's senior management or counterintelligence offices, according to Robinson. Robinson said that at the time, "there was no general alarm about the espionage activities of the People's Republic of China."

The so-called Cox report on possible spying by China in Energy Department labs had not yet been completed, Robinson said. Nevertheless, Sandia officials should have heeded the warning, according to the internal investigation, completed Sept. 23.

"Effectively...without the advice of experts (one person) unilaterally determined to take no further action on a potential matter of national security," according to the report, which was made available to United Press International.

At least 50 people at Sandia had learned about the contents of the e- mail from Intel by July, when Sandia conducted a mandatory security education day. At that time, the Sandia employee who originally raised the issue brought it to the attention of the specialist who originally dismissed his concerns, who in turn told the export control office. Even that was not enough to alert the Energy Department to the potential problem.

"Unfortunately, the export control officer who had the notification action went on vacation without passing the issue to the (Sandia National Laboratories) security office," the investigation revealed. The matter has been referred to the Office of Security Affairs, according to the report.

In mid-July, Sandia's representatives called Jiang to determine the status of the computer and learned he was a Chinese citizen. The Energy Department was notified immediately, and by July 21, Sandia had repurchased the computer for $88,888.88, according to Robinson.

"It seems eight is a lucky number in China," Robinson told the House Armed Services procurement subcommittee. Energy Department officials told the congressional panel that China received none of the equipment. "No harm to U.S. national security resulted from this incident," Robinson said. "I assure you that since the issuance of the Cox report and the performance of security immersion training for 100 percent of our staff, we have become much more attuned to the Chinese effort to acquire export-controlled, high-performance computer technology. Am I satisfied Sandia lived up to its obligation? The answer is no. I think we're all wiser by the exercise that took place."


Our Sponsors:

@Xi Mellanox CSI Intel

WSM SGI IBM Corp. Hewlett-Packard

NEC Portland Group Fujitsu SUN

Quadrics Etnus / TotalView Linux Networx Myricom

Platform Microsoft MSC Software

PreviousTable of ContentsNext